Hogarth has known National Assembly Speaker Thoko Didiza since she was a young activist operating from an ecumenical centre on St Andrews Street in Durban. She went by her maiden name of Msane then, and a friendlier leader of the anti-apartheid movement you could not hope to meet. What Hogarth never noticed in those years, though, was her wicked sense of humour.
The other day in the National Assembly, she went through the process of calling each party in turn to make its political statement without much drama. But when it was the turn of the African Transformation Movement — or ATM, which has two MPs — there was no response.
“ATM,” she called out once more. Dead silence.
“It looks like the bank has no money,” she quipped.
Fraudulent struggle veteran
Speaking of money, Louis Liebenberg, alleged diamond swindler and an MK Party funder, was nabbed by the police this week. Appearing in court, he chanted political slogans as if he was a guerrilla fighter appearing before an apartheid court. Viva Msholozi, Viva MK, he cried, clinched fist in the air. The party’s secretary-general, Sifiso Maseko, found this so moving that he told a media conference Liebenberg was “a definition of what loyalty is”. He should tell that to the hundreds of investors who trustingly gave Liebenberg their hard-earned savings and now find themselves out of pocket.
Minister of aggro culture
John Steenhuisen sounds like he was genuinely hurt by the realisation that though he and McBuffalo are now probably on first-name terms, the Prez still does not take him seriously enough to care about embarrassing him in front of his DA constituency by calling Vladimir Putin an ally of their carefully put together government of national unity. So hurt was Steenhuisen that he publicly distanced himself and the DA from the president’s statement.
It took another new member to the multiparty government, Gayton McKenzie, to remind John Vuligate that although they are all partners in the GNU, in the cabinet McBuffalo is still their boss and therefore calls the shots.
“The president made a huge mistake by leaving you behind. He should have taken you with and you would have smiled and laughed with President Putin just like you did with President Xi [Jingpin of China]. You are not speaking on behalf of government, the president does, go back to work now, minister.”
Coming home to roost
So Busisiwe Mkhwebane finally got tired of pretending and openly threw in her lot with the man who seems to have always been her idol, Baba kaDuduzani. No more masquerading as a hard-working, impartial head of a chapter 9 institution. No more having to fake delight at wearing red overalls and addressing colleagues as commissars and fighters.
There was such joy on her face as she told a media conference how at home she feels in the MK Party: “I joined the MK Party because I felt that it’s a home that understands the persecution of black people, the challenges which we are facing and fighting the captured system. So, I could relate to the constitution of MK — I am not lost, I am home.”
As she becomes the latest in a long list of Zuma loyalists to come out of the closet, the MK Party is fast emerging as the association of his praise singers.
Bloody fool? Er, yes
But one Zuma fanatic who seems to have missed the memo is EFF MP Carl Niehaus. Old Carl threw his toys out of the cot again, this time accusing Mkhwebane of being some sort of a traitor for exchanging her red overalls for Zuma’s spear. He reminded her that it was his commander-in-chief who offered her a job as an MP after she had been impeached and removed as public protector. “You used and abused the goodwill and supported the @EFFSouthAfrica and our commander-in-chief, president @Julius_S_Malema. It is also matter of public record how I supported you when you were persecuted and impeached. Now I feel like a bloody fool, and it’s not a good feeling to feel used, lied to and betrayed.”
At least Carl now knows how his former ANC comrades felt when he lied to extort money from them, claiming his mom had died.
Red faces under red berets
Speaking of politicians who have ditched Juju for the Nkandla Crooner, Floyd Shivambu gave an interview to Dali Mpofu’s son, Sizwe Mpofu-Welsh, about how he dumped his ex-BFF. Shivambu told Mpofu-Welsh that senior leaders of the EFF knew about his pending departure and that they had advised him to keep this secret from Juju, in case the temperamental one lost his marbles. Floyd revealed that some of those who he had told in advance — and who remain in the top leadership of the EFF to this day — feigned shock when his departure was announced at a meeting of the EFF’s highest decision-making body. Some even managed to fake involuntary tears of dismay.
Things are about to get really awkward there at Winnie Mandela House.
Five-year plans of shame
On Wednesday the EFF’s Sam Matiase asked public works minister Dean Macpherson in parliament whether his department would repurpose unoccupied state buildings for student accommodation by the end of the year.
In response, Macpherson warned Matiase of the perils of setting deadlines: “It was the honourable member’s leader who said five years ago he wanted to build a private school in Alexandra, and he said, ‘If we don’t build that school in the next five years don’t re-elect us next time because we would be useless.’ And I think that was a very prophetic statement by honourable Malema.”
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